LOVE

This transcript was written to those who have received Jesus as there Lord and Savior and know of His love personally within their hearts. This is what gives us strength to endure and obey His commands. We have fellowship with the Comforter...The Holy Spirit. This is His testimony to us. You can come to know Jesus personally at this site by clicking on the link titled Heaven.

We will start by reading a prayer by a special individual in the Bible known as Daniel. Daniel had seen much suffering in his life due to the rebellion of his nation against God's commandments.

Jeremiah had warned the people to listen to God's words and come to reason with Him. But these people would not heed the warning given in detail by this prophet. I mention this particular book in our Bible because it is the epitome of people rebelling against God. It led to the destruction of their city and captivity.

I want you to think of a child growing up in a safe home with loving parents. This child grows up surrounded in love. This is what God wants for each one of us...for everyone in the world. This is why God has sent His only Son into the world. To die for anyone who would accept His love. That is depicted in His love letter to us...The Bible. My Son will die in your place is what the Lord says in Isaiah 53. All we have to do is accept this sacrifice and listen as best as we can to a loving father. This is drawn out for us in the Gospels.

 

We have Daniel, in his latter years, praying to God after He had found out that the Babylonian captivity was soon to come to an end. He had been reading Jeremiah who had warned the people of coming doom if they didn't repent and turn back to God. People's hearts were so calloused that they would not listen to Jeremiah's warnings. These terrible warnings of God wrath were to turn men's hearts back to God and avoid destruction. But people just kept on sinning and they scorned Jeremiah. As the captivity became evident, God had warned the people not to resist their captives so that they would not be torn to pieces by the approaching army. Jeremiah had expressed that they would be able to return after seventy years and during that time they could live in relative safety under the Babylonian rule, but they resisted and eventually the temple was destroyed, many lives lost, and only the poorest of the people were left behind. The people were on the verge of starvation and cannibalism during the siege, but the leader's hearts were to cold to listen to reason.

God was deeply in love with these people, but they would not listen to the warnings of impending danger. We must understand that the books of the Bible like Jeremiah aren't books of threats but of warnings to bring people back in line. You might think of them as a doctors prescription as to what a patient needs and the ill individual running headlong into harms way by neglecting the per-scribe solution.

I bring this to light because Daniel had a love relationship with God. He observed God's love by his prayer even after being in the king's service for most of his life from his youth till his old age. He faced death on several occasions and saw the destruction of his people and their city while being taken as a prisoner himself.

Daniel knew this God of love. His faith in God kept him loyal no matter what circumstances were presented before him. What a contrast to the Kings of his country who had left God for there own ways. They lived in luxury and would not obey God. Daniel lived under threat of death and would not deny Him. Daniel had a relationship with a living God...A God who loves ...who Daniel trusted.

Let me reflect on a novel, "The Silver Sword" by Ian Serraillier based on a true story which occurred during WWII. Three children were left to live as best they can in the streets of Warsaw. Their father is sent to a prison camp and their mother is taken away to do forced labor in Germany. These Children did what they could in order to live in the shattered city of Warsaw. Ruth, the oldest daughter takes the responsibility of educating and trying to establish normalcy in her siblings and the other children's lives in her community.

After the war, the father searches for his children and comes upon a little boy named Jan who he befriends. The father gives a paper sword to Jan. The father tells the boy that he has given him the sword under the condition that if he should meet up with his family, he would tell them that he was going to Switzerland. This is the first step in this little boy's life in developing a trust toward adults once again. The boy is found lying sick in the streets by Ruth's students and comes under their care. Slowly but surly, the boy learns to trust others once again.

I want you to reflect on this story a bit. The children in this story have seen unbelievable devastating circumstances take place. They have seen the adults, those responsible for making things right in their lives, destroy their parents and everything in sight. In the actual history of Warsaw we are told of a wall that was built around the city entrapping the people that were left to starve to death inside.

If there ever was a picture of sin this would qualify for sure. The one thing that is evident throughout this story is the paper sword. It become a recurring symbol of hope through out the story and it gives Jan a link into developing a relationship with others after he had closed out everyone he would ever come in contact with again. It is interesting that little children would know how to set things into a right perspective and start to take care of each other while the adults had destroyed so much of their world. Jesus had mentioned that we need to become like little children to enter the kingdom of God.

I see this paper sword as a type of the word of God. The Bible is man's link back to God. We can see from the stories of the Bible that the prophecies have come true and God has sent Christ into this world to bring back his children to Him to have fellowship. The Bible is known to be sharper then any two edged sword in discerning men's hearts. It is likened to a surgeon's scalpel that cuts and heals the wounded.

Jesus said in...

Tax collectors in this era were corrupt and would keep any additional money they could extort from an individual that was above the correct tax amount.

We hear Christ speaking of Loving your enemies, The scriptures speak of Christ dying for us while we were His enemies. Who is Christ' enemy? Well, let's face it. I certainly didn't want anything to do with what God was saying in His word...the Bible. I wanted to have fun as it was depicted to me by the world and my peers where I had grown up. But Christ had already paid for all of my sins whether I wanted Him to do so or not. This is How much God loves the world. God sent His Son into the world not to condemn the world, but to save that which was (already) lost. In other words, we were lost and God came down to earth to show us the way back to heaven. But we fight against this love like the little boy in our story that had to struggle with trusting others after being hurt so many times.

Here we have Jesus saying that if you love God with all your heart, you will be loving your neighbor because you will know of God's great love personally. When you do, you will want to share this love with others. Like the father who gave the boy the paper sword, we have the word of God penned out. Its words point to the Messiah we call Jesus, so people can see what God has done and not perish, but survive in God's everlasting embrace in place where there won't be anymore wars or tears.

I want to mention one more very important fact. We are in a war. A spiritual war for our souls. Sin has separated us from God just as the wall around Warsaw had encumbered its inhabitants. This is why Christ died...to break down this wall of separation. This is why God would allow Jesus to die in the hands of murderous thugs. To show us no matter how much we suffer in life, God himself has put his Son on the Cross. for all to see. This was done to save those who were lost. That is the entire human race.

Daniel had been praying and fasting for twenty one days before the angel Gabriel had brought the Prophecy of Jesus' coming to the earth. Gabriel was held captive by demonic beings. Namely, the "Prince of Persia." The Archangel Michael had to come and fight to have Gabriel released. It was a twenty one day battle conducted and won because one man gave honor to God and prayed. The prophecies in this book are coming true as we are moving into one of the most emphatic prophecies and most dangerous times on the earth. We have to accept Christ as our savior in order to avoid certain harm for all eternity. The walls of Warsaw have been demolished. But our souls may still be held captive!

Escaping from man's spiritual enemy, satan, can be done only by accepting Christ finish work on the Cross. Without this, we cannot expect to enter into the Heaven. We need to obey God or lose all love for all eternity. If anyone would like to say a prayer to accept Christ into their lives, we can pray with you. Or if you would like to receive more information about Prophecy and why we believe what we believe, you may search this site and click on the "share" link which has an email link.

Whether outwardly, inwardly, or unconsciously, we feel that God is ultimately responsible and that situations are in His hands. I must say, they truly are. God has placed all things under Christ and upon Him on the Cross. The nails in Jesus' hands were placed there by God and Christ agreed to this before the creation. The nail marks in Jesus' hands have your name engraved upon them. His love for you is what held Christ to that Cross. All your suffering can be left at this Cross. He will bear it for you. He suffered and died for you personally. It is up to you to accept it! This is true. He not only died for your mistakes past, present, and future. He is willing to accept any heavy burden you are carrying right now. That is why He carried the Cross. Our worries and struggles are actually sins to be left at the foot of the Cross for Christ to take from you!

Allow me to read some more of Jesus' wonderful words...

Thank you,

2006©